Monday, January 26, 2015

LGBT Business News launches biweekly, monthly publications in Miami

Yet another gay publication has launched in South Florida with the debut on Jan. 19 of LGBT Business News.

LGBT Business News, a print and digital media company, is producing a full-page biweekly print publication and a monthly magazine, as well as maintaining a website.

The focus of the new media outlet is LGBT-friendly companies and LGBT-owned businesses as well as executives, entrepreneurs, employees and business trends.

In debuting LGBT Business News, the company announced a print and distribution partnership with the Miami Herald.

"With the Miami Herald as our print and distribution partner, LGBT Business News will print 138,000 biweekly and 100,000 copies of the monthly magazine, making LGBT Business News the largest LGBT business news publication in the U.S.," said Arnel Trovada, chief executive officer and publisher of LGBT Business News.

"We are very excited about working with LGBT Business News," said Samuel Brown, vice president of advertising for the Miami Herald. "The LGBT community is important to us, and we want to enhance our relationship with them through this partnership."

According to a press release, the editorial focus of the publication is 100 percent business news — from the Fortune 500, Forbes 500 and INC 500 to LGBT-friendly companies and LGBT-owned businesses. The online content will feature expanded news stories and exclusive content not available in print. Other online features include user-friendly news and events pages allowing businesses and organizations to publicize and promote their events on www.lgbtbusinessnews.com.

LGBT Business News will publish bi-weekly as a section within Business Monday in the Miami Herald. It will also publish 100,000 copies as a monthly magazine supplement inserted into the Herald. It will not publish as a stand-alone publication.

Full-page features would appear in the Miami Herald's Business Monday. The monthly magazine will be distributed to 100,000 of the Herald's subscribers and retailers including Publix, Starbucks, Walmart, Barnes & Noble and 7-Eleven, according to the press statement.

In launching LGBT Business News, the company is convinced that marketing to the gay community is good for business. For instance, LGBT Business News cites Witeck Communications’ marketing research, which estimates that “our” community has more than $800 million in buying power. Witeck Communications is a leading strategic marketing communications firm based in Washington, D.C.

In addition, according to the Witeck study, LGBT customers’ purchasing patterns showed that brand loyalty means much more to the LGBT community than price. That is to say nearly 71 percent of the LGBT adults surveyed said they are likely to remain loyal to a brand they believe to be very friendly and supportive to the LGBT community even when less-friendly companies may offer lower prices or be more convenient.

Population growth also bodes well for the introduction of a new publication. Florida has the third largest LGBT population in the country, according to the U.S. Census. The Miami Metropolitan area has an adult LGBT population of approximately 273,540 and attracts 1.2 million LGBT visitors annually, according to Miami LGBT Visitor Center.

As more LGBT executives and entrepreneurs continue to make national news — Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple; Kevin McClatchy, chairman of the McClatchy Company, parent company of the Miami Herald; and Chris Hughes, the co-founder of Facebook — publisher Trovada believes that an exclusive business publication for the LGBT community has huge potential for growth.

The Miami metropolitan area is the first market for the publication, he said, but there are plans to publish LGBT Business News in other major markets.

Historically, LGBT publications’ expansions to other cities — think Window Media and HX — have not been successful in the long run.

But LGBT Business News media spokesman, Daniel Thomas, said the publication’s business model has competitive advantages. “We would create the same print and distribution partnership with other dailies as we did with the Miami Herald,” he said. “LGBT Business News is different than other gay media outlets in that we are not a stand-alone publication, and our print and distribution partnership gives us a competitive advantage over other local gay media outlets.”

In other words, LGBT Business News is a niche player entirely focused on business.

For his part, Bob Witeck, president and founder of Witeck Communications, welcomed the launch of new publication. “I’m encouraged by the arrival of the LGBT Business News in South Florida,” he said. “I’ve personally observed remarkable changes in business trends, opportunities and market growth for nearly 25 years that deserve journalist attention and much more light. Given Florida’s emergence on same-sex marriage, and the regional climate for LGBT friendly businesses, the timing seems near perfect.”

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